Daffodils
by SilentDaughter
Summary: This is just a little story I wrote some odd years ago. Carlisle has a surprise for Esme that makes them both appreciate daffodils a little more.


**DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the characters mentioned in my story, except Dr. Andrews, he's mine. The characters you do recognize belong to SM and I do not receive money from my story or intend to receive money from this story or any of my other stories. **

**A/N: This is a story I had written a few years ago and am just putting it up now due to fair amount of success my other story has received. This story has not beta so all mistakes are mine.**

I can't wait to get home. After being stuck at the hospital for nearly twelve hours, I was more than ready to go home. So as I drove the latest Model T down the secluded road that lead to my home, I couldn't help but let my mind wander to the people, well vampires, who waited for me.

Edward. The young man who had been my only companion for the last few years and has certainly made life a lot more interesting. We didn't get along as well as we do now in the beginning. His temper was something to be reckoned with and could be quite spontaneous at times. And although his tamper does make an appearance once and a while, it has calmed considerably since _she _came into our lives.

Since I met her that one fateful day in 1911 in Columbus, Ohio, she never completely left my thoughts. Sure, I tried in vain to forget about her but once and a while the memory of meeting her would push its way to the forefront of my mind. Talking to her to distract her from the pain as I reset her leg, the way her eyes looked as she recalled the events that led her to breaking her leg and the blush that rose in her cheeks as I gently handled her broken leg. I had left the day after treating her, knowing that if I stayed, I would try to learn more about her and she certainly deserved someone better than me.

So ten years later when Edward and I moved to Ashland, I certainly did not expect to meet her, let alone the state I found her in. When I had discovered that her body had not given up on her, I snuck her out of the hospital and ran home, biting her almost immediately. Edward, of course, had not been too happy, but once he realized that this was the woman from my memories, he stopped yelling at me but he kept sending me the glares.

When her heart gave its last thump and her eyes opened, the warm brown replaced by deep crimson, I knew there was definitely no way that I was ever going to let this woman go. I remember Edward growling, probably from something the newborn was thinking; she hissed back then stopped when she realized that it was her who made the noise.

I stopped my trail of thought when I pulled up to the short road that leads to my home. I pulled up and parked the car into the detached garage. Grabbing my medical bag from the passenger seat, I left the car and the garage and walked the few feet to the house.

"Is anyone here?" I called out and was greeted with Edward a few seconds later.

"I was just on my way to class. She's out back gardening and drawing." He said as he passed me and went to the garage. I set my bag down and made my way through the house until I exited through the back door and sure enough, there she was. She looked up upon hearing me enter the yard.

"Carlisle, you're home early." She said as she stood. She pulled the gloves off her delicate hands and set them down on the bench nearby. I rested my hands at her waist once she was close enough.

"Dr. Andrews believed that I had been there long enough and said it was unfair to ask me to stay for a full 24 hours. So he sent me home." I said and she smiled.

"Well, I'll be sure to send him a thank you letter." She teased, a sly grin appearing on her face.

"While I´m sure he'd appreciate the gesture, Esme, he has also given me a few days off to recuperate, so you and Edward are stuck with me for a few days." I said and gave her sides a gentle squeeze and she giggled.

"Alright then, since you're free from work for the next few days, you can help me plant." Esme said and she handed me a spade and an extra pair of garden gloves. I chuckled and kneeled next to her in the grass in front of the empty patch of dirt that would soon be filled with shrubs and flowers.

"So what are we planting here?" I asked as I watched her fiddle with a bunch of flowers.

"This section will be filled with Daffodils. Then the areas next to it are going to be planted with Snapdragons and orange Alstroemerias. Then we're going to scatter a few Nemophilia seeds so they bloom throughout the area." She said but I had next to no clue what the flowers were, with the exception of the Daffodils.

We worked in silence for the short while it took us to plant the flowers and scatter the seeds.

"Thank you for helping me, Carlisle." Esme said as she dusted off the skirts of her dress.

"It was my pleasure, Esme. No need to thank me. You know I would do anything you asked me to." I told her as I took my hand and led her to the forest behind our home.

"So if I asked you to walk around town bare, you would do it?" She asked, a cheeky grin on her face. I laughed and held her hand tighter.

"If it made you happy, then I would." If she asked me to never go to work again, I wouldn't. Her happiness meant everything to me.

We kept walking until we came to the field I had come across a few weeks ago, except this time, it was filled with bright yellow Daffodils. As we walked to the center of the field, I turned to Esme.

"Do you know what Daffodils mean?" I asked her and she nodded.

"They're commonly referred to as flowers for new beginnings and rebirth. Although its proper name is Narcissus." She said as we came to a stop in the center of the flowers.

"We've all been reborn, in a way and we've been given new beginnings and the opportunity to live life again." I said and came to stand in front of her. Esme was quiet as she surveyed the clearing around us.

"It's beautiful." She whispered, as if talking too loud would send the flowers into hiding like a scared fox. I took her hand in mine, gaining her attention. Once I had it, I kneeled and a gasp came from her surprised face.

"I love you Esme, more than words could describe. Perhaps I have loved you since that fateful day a clumsy young woman came in with a broken leg. Being away from you for all those years left an emptiness in me that I had no answer for, but became obvious when it faded when I saw you battered and bruised and I realized that I couldn't lose you again. I refuse to lose you again and I will do everything in my power to make sure of it. So, Esme Ann Platt, will you do me the incredible privilege of becoming my wife?" I asked and her hands went to her mouth, eyes misting over. She nodded and I stood and kissed her. I slid the ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. We kissed again before sitting amongst the bunches of flowers.

"I have a new appreciation for Daffodils now." Esme said and I smiled, content that his extraordinary creature would forever be at my side.

"So do I darling, so do I."


End file.
